


you're a sky full of stars

by unicornpoe



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Library, Astronomy, Books, But Do We Blame Them?, Fluff, Happy Steve Bingo, Hurt/Comfort, Libraries, Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, No We Do Not, Nomad Steve Rogers, Pet Names, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes, Pretty Much At First Sight, Rain, Romance, SO MUCH FLUFF, Sappy, Sickfic, Tenderness, This is disgustingly sweet, You Have Been Warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 03:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21263972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicornpoe/pseuds/unicornpoe
Summary: It's raining outside, but inside, there is Steve. And books. That’s enough.





	you're a sky full of stars

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently every single of the fics I write for this particular bingo is going to be ridiculously self-indulgent and sappy. I mean, _I'm_ not complaining... 
> 
> All my Russian is from google translate, so if I've got something drastically wrong and you can fix it, please feel free to let me know!
> 
> Written for the square "Library" on my Happy Steve Bingo card. Title taken—pretentiously, I am aware—from Coldplay. 
> 
> Enjoy<3

He walks in on long, coltish legs, his curls rain-damp, his cheeks autumn-pink. He’s windblown and blowsy. Absolutely elegant, in an unconventional sort of way. Bright-eyed. Precious. 

Steve fumbles with the stapler. Nearly drops it on his foot. 

This isn’t the first time this gray-eyed man has come into the library where Steve works, a tattered book bag slung over one shoulder, the laces of his Doc Martin’s untied—this isn’t the first time, and Steve would know. Steve would know, because he notices. 

His co-workers give him hell for it, in a friendly sort of way: snicker and elbow him not subtly enough when the gray-eyed boy comes in, winking broadly in Steve’s direction, making kissy faces at Steve when they other man’s back is turned. Steve laughs along, even though he blushes; Steve bears their teasing, doesn’t let on that it stings, no matter how kindly it’s meant, because it’s just so very founded in truth. Steve is huge and very quiet and wears flannel and has a beard and too-long hair and literally lives so far outside of town that he hasn’t had a visitor in months: the gray-eyed man is beautiful, and when Steve looks at him, his heart pants. 

It’s comical. The woodsman and the prince. Steve understands. 

Today, though: Sam’s the only one working with Steve today, and instead of laughing or nudging or teasing when the gray-eyed man comes in, Sam says nothing. He just smiles at Steve across the cart of books that need reshelved, both eyebrows raised— _ well, go on, then— _ and Steve really does drop the stapler this time, it clatters right down onto the floor, because  _ what _ ?

The gray-eyed man looks up and back at the sound; catches Steve in his muffled, red-faced flailing. He’s quiet and thin and unobtrusive and brilliant, especially compared to the blunt-harsh way Steve’s large hands move, and Steve imagines ridicule on that soft face, or quiet, sharp amusement, or, or pity—

But no. He just smiles a bit, the edge of his wide wonderful mouth curling upward like a flower petal. All sooty lashes and darting, shy gaze. 

The gray-eyed man looks down again, fast, and those damp curls flop over across his brow, and Steve has never, ever seen someone who looks so  _ soft.  _

Steve watches him until he disappears down the sci-fi aisle. 

Sam is waiting with a stare that’s half amused, half truly pitying, and where was  _ that, _ Steve wants to know,  _ earlier?  _

“Boy,” says Sam. He shakes his head, a quick little gesture, and his smile grows at the way Steve palms his own hot cheeks. From the floor, the stapler glares up at Steve judgmentally. “Steve.”

Steve turns his back to Sam and tries to look busy, although he has absolutely no idea what he was doing before that boy came in, he has no  _ clue.  _ He hopes the back of his neck isn’t as blistered-pink as it feels, although it’s rare that he’d have such luck. 

Sam is silent for a brief period of time, which is always disconcerting. Steve tells his heart to settle down because 1. the gray-eyed man isn’t even in view right now and 2. this is a stupid thing to panic over. 

“You should just ask him for his number,” Sam says. He bends to pick up the stapler—oh, right, yes, Steve should’ve done that, oops—and, at Steve’s horrified look, sighs. Expansively. “ _ Steve. _ ”

“I,” says Steve, mouth dry, already breathing too fast.  _ I can’t ask him,  _ he wants to say,  _ how could I ask him? I’m me, and he’s him. I miss my dog while I’m at work, and he’s beautiful.  _

Something in the slope of Sam’s eyebrows softens, and he sets the stapler down with a much smaller sigh, brushing Steve on the shoulder as his hand retreats. “Ok,” Sam says, and Steve appreciates that Sam’s holding back: he can tell that Sam does not want to. “Alright. Think about it?”

_ It’s all I think about, _ says Steve inside. 

He looks away, nodding. Picks up the stapler. Gets back to work. 

  
  
  
  


Bucky Barnes has a problem. 

It’s a large, distressing problem. It’s a large, distressing problem in the form of a tall librarian, one with a honey-blond beard and startlingly soft eyes, one with muscles straining incongruously against the sleeves of his mild-patterned flannels, and a smile that never fails to absolutely bowl Bucky over. 

_ Steve Rogers, _ is what his nametag says. Steve—and Steve’s big hands are so careful with the books that surround him, his forearms are so utterly distracting, lightly dusted with hair and leading down to an almost delicate knob of wrist, that Bucky keeps walking into things when he’s around him. 

He doesn’t think that Steve notices he exists. Not in a rude way: Steve still sends him those soft smiles, wrapped in precious feeling, when their eyes meet over the circulation desk, and Steve nods at him when they come upon each other in one of the dusk-quiet aisles, and Steve has never, not once, been anything but kind—but. But he runs away every time Bucky gets close to him. 

And Bucky— 

Well. Bucky is Bucky. A Russian immigrant, a space nerd, someone who has never quite managed to grow into his legs or cheeks or eyes or mouth; too quiet. Too shy. Too clumsy. 

And Steve is  _ Steve.  _

Kind, though: that’s something that Bucky knows with certainty. Steve Rogers is a kind man. 

You could tell just by looking at him, Bucky thinks, or at least he could, even if he hadn’t been presented with the heaps of evidence he has been. Steve speaks to every one of his coworkers the same, even though he’s obviously the closest thing to head librarian this branch has; he smiles at everyone who comes in, and his shyness is almost adorable on such an enormous man, and he helps kids find books about trains and shooting stars, and loves dogs and drinks his coffee black. He’s  _ kind.  _

Bucky cannot possibly speak to him. 

He speaks to Sam, though, who Bucky has found out—thanks to months of clandestine listening in—is Steve’s best friend, and Sam seems to think Bucky is an idiot regarding this point. 

“You should talk to him,” Sam says, swiping Bucky’s library card. It’s the same thing he’s been telling Bucky every time he comes in for at least a month. It’s unhelpful. 

Bucky tries not to frown too deeply. It’s embarrassing, really, how much he wishes he could. Would. How much he wishes for those tidal pool eyes to land on him, to settle, to stay. He wishes he could know what it is about him that makes Steve not want to get to know him; what it is about him that’s so different from all the other patrons, and all the other employees, at this library. 

But he doesn’t. 

“Sam,” Bucky says, and there must be something in his tone: Sam looks at him then, his teasing grin fading fast. “He doesn’t like me.”

The grin fades through sorrow, straight to sheer confusion. “Are you  _ kidding _ me?” Sam splutters. “Barnes, that man…”

He trails off, just looking at Bucky. Lips parted. 

“You two need to sort your shit,” he says finally, and Bucky’s pretty sure that Steve probably has his whole life together already, but far be it from him to argue with Sam Wilson. 

  
  
  
  


This is how it works: 

The gray-eyed man comes in, long legs and nimble hands, and he fades into the rows of books for a while. Steve spies him sometimes: rambling through books on physics and philosophy, on art and romance, novels of lands far away, and people with stories to tell; tucked in a corner of the big, fluffy couch they keep pulled up next to the fire in one of the reading rooms, because this town they all live in—while admittedly much busier when the university is in session—is so small that their library is in an old house, a blanket over his lap, his eyes wide with wonder. Sometimes he brings a laptop, and he types furiously with a divot between his eyebrows until the sun sets in the sky, and Steve wants to bring him hot chocolate or coffee or something warm, and Steve wants to brush those tatterdemalion curls back from his forehead, Steve wants to hold his hand and say, I’ll listen, do you need someone to listen? Do you need someone? 

Steve doesn’t do this. That would be. Not a good idea. 

And then the gray-eyed man comes up to the counter to check his books out, and Steve falls back, lets someone else help him; Steve falls back, looks away, pulls his shoulders up and in, because the alternative is standing a foot away from him and having to  _ speak,  _ and that, oh, god, no. 

But apparently today is just not Steve Rogers’ day. 

There’s a quiet noise, a sound like feet shuffling—and Steve looks up, and there he is, standing in front of Steve like this isn’t remarkable, his arms full of books, a swallow working its way down the pale line of his throat. 

Steve’s heart gives a feeble throb. He knows he’s staring, wide-eyed and foolish; alternatively, he knows he couldn’t look away if he tried. 

“Hello,” says the man, when the silence between them has stretched on for too long. There’s something about his voice—Steve has heard him speak before, of course, to Sam or Natasha or Wanda or Clint, but this is different—it’s melodious and gentle, little dips in unexpected places, the very faintest hint of a Russian accent that’s had its edges worn away by time and distance. It feels good to listen to him. He speaks like a song. 

“Hello,” Steve says, conscious of how he sounds in comparison: worn-out and nervous, probably, too loud, none of that strange, old-world elegance that lurks around the corners of this man’s vowels. Bravely, Steve meets his eyes once—and then looks down again when it’s too much, down, down, down at the stack of books that’s being nudged towards him across the counter. 

Steve picks up the first one.  _ A Brief History of Time.  _ Stephen Hawking. Steve smiles before he can stop himself. 

“Oh,” says the man, quietly. He’s smiling, too, and it’s bigger than Steve’s seen on his face before. His curls have dried, and now they are fluffy and messy and—a kitten. That’s what this man reminds Steve of. A little brown kitten, wide-eyed and soft. 

“Do you like science?” Steve asks him. He’s stunned that he managed to get that sentence out whole, no stumbling consonants, no trips over vowels. 

The man’s face lights up. He’s breathtaking. He has utterly taken Steve’s breath away. 

“Oh, yes,” says the man, a little breathless, too, like he can’t quite get a full exhale before he speaks. Steve knows the feeling. “I’m, I’m a grad student. I’m getting my degree in astronomy. It’s  _ fascinating.”  _ He sets a hand on the cover of the book Steve’s holding, and there they are: bare centimeters of distance between their skin, fingers so close, oh, Steve could touch him if he was brave and if that was allowed, “I’ve read this, of course, I’m… but, and, it’s lovely living here, now, where you can see the stars so brilliantly, and oh my goodness, I’m still talking, please tell me to stop talking.”

Steve thinks:  _ never stop.  _

Steve says: “We have lots of books here, um. About stars.”

The man is still pink and flustered with embarrassment, but there’s excitement behind it, too, unbridled and sweet. “I know!” he says to Steve, not like he’s correcting him, but like it’s something he’s really so very thrilled over. His color gets a little deeper as Steve starts to check out the rest of his books, and his eyes drop to the movement of their hands on that vast, uncharted space of counter between them. “I love coming here. This is. This is my favorite place in town.”

Steve smiles at him, brighter than he means to. That shouldn’t delight him so much, but it emphatically does. “Mine, too,” he says, like an idiot, and hopes his hand isn’t shaking as he stretches it out to take the man’s library card. 

He does his level best to avoid any brushing of hands as the gray-eyed man passes over that rectangle of plastic. It’s like this: Steve feels so much for him, about him, around him, and he’s sure that if any part of them were to touch, the man would be able to feel the full weight of all Steve’s inappropriate adoration pouring out of his flesh, and that would be the end. He wouldn’t come back in. Steve would end up ruining this man’s favorite place in town, and there’s something about this man that Steve wants fiercely to keep happy: so Steve will back away. 

But—but there’s a slip-up, a tangle—and the man grabs Steve’s fingers instead of the library card as it falls to the counter, and Steve jumps, shocked, like he’s been burned. 

“Sorry, sorry, oh no.” The man—Steve’s picking his card up now,  _ James B. Barnes _ it says, his name is  _ James— _ James looks… distraught. Steve has a feeling his own face looks something awful: a mixture of terrified and elated and way, way too interested in the warm touch of James’ palm to be conventional or welcomed. He turns to the computer, heart beating a fatal rhythm at the base of his neck, and hopes that when he looks up next, James won’t look so upset with himself. 

He has no such luck. When Steve finishes swiping James’ library card and stacking his books into a neat pile, mumbling “‘s alright,” into the collar of his flannel, and finally looks up, James is frowning even further. There’s a tense and disappointed thing hiding behind his river-bed eyes, and Steve can’t tell if it’s directed toward him, or toward James himself. “It’s ok,” Steve says again, with a bit more conviction. He doesn’t like James looking sad. James is a person who should never be sad. He knows this, somehow. 

“Yeah,” says James nonsensically. He shakes his head a little, as if to clear it; blinks quickly, long lashes and a forced smile. 

“James,” Steve says, surprised again at himself: at the intent in his voice. He’s still holding James’ books, James’ card, and James is just.  _ Looking.  _ Flashes of gray, ringed around inky black pupils. “It’s alright. I’m Steve.”

There’s a moment: crystalline, a raindrop poised on the edge of a leaf, just waiting to fall. 

And then James smiles. 

Steve feels it right behind his chest, that smile; sneaking in with butter-soft edges and wrapping feathery tendrils around individual ribs. It catches up his lungs. Makes them stutter. He wonders if James knows how beautiful he is. 

“Hello, Steve,” says James. Quiet, like this a secret they both share, and Steve finds himself leaning in until the edge of the counter cuts into his hips. “I am. I’m—Bucky. Bucky, please.”

Oddly, his apparent nerves set Steve at ease. It’s nice not to be the only one affected by… this. Whatever this is. Nothing, maybe. Something, he thinks. 

“Bucky,” repeats Steve. The name feels right in his mouth, resting contentedly there, fitting behind Steve’s teeth like he’s said it a million times before. Bucky seems pleased when Steve says it: leaning in like Steve is, his long-fingered hands spread over the counter, the blunt pink curve of his smile soft-focused and dazzled. Dazzling. “Nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too.” The fall of Bucky’s eyelashes over the round swell of his cheek is mesmerizing. This kid… god. 

Steve slides Bucky’s books and Bucky’s card over until they bump reaching fingertips, makes sure nimble hands have them secure, draws back reluctantly when he should. Bucky tucks the books into his stylish messenger bag like the precious cargo they both seem to understand all books to be, and slips the card into the back pocket of his skinny jeans. 

It’s raining outside. Thin silver drops like a mist of stars, shimmering a little in traffic light gleam, and a sprightly wind that picks it all up, tosses it all around. Bucky is maybe a little too thin, maybe a little too pale; his jacket doesn’t look very warm. 

“Will you be alright?” Steve asks, before his brain has a chance to tell him it is in no way his place to ask. His place to care. That’s Steve’s problem, and it always has been: devoted intention. A loyalty that’s deep and unabiding and fast. Blundering protectiveness, a do-right streak that’s miles long. Misplaced, all of it, especially in this situation. 

But Bucky says, “Yes,” and Bucky pulls the flimsy-looking edges of his gray jean jacket close over that narrow chest, and Bucky tips his dimpled chin up to meet Steve’s eyes, and Bucky’s smile grows just that fraction more. “Thank you, Steve,” says Bucky. Takes two steps back. Eyes shining. Steve hopes he lives near. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Yes,” Steve echoes. Hopes. “Soon.” 

Bucky steps out into the rain. Steve watches him until silver streaks blur his edges, and he fades into the evening like the color fading from a painting. 

Soon. 

He smiles at Steve when he slips into the library a few days later. Steve smiles back as Bucky walks on long legs towards him; Steve becomes conscious of the fact that he’s been smiling—watching, looking—for far too long and ducks behind the display of Halloween-themed kids books he’s been setting up, trying his best to hide his broad shoulders behind illustrated pumpkins and ghosts. He can hear Sam snickering behind him. He feels his face burning red. 

Steve busies his hands. Aligning corners with corners, smoothing pages. Shoving down the rapscallion-tick of his heart. 

“Hi.”

Steve doesn’t jump. Steve very consciously doesn’t jump. Steve is so still, in fact, that Bucky’s smooth brow furrows over the shelf of books. The edges of his mouth dip down. 

His hair is especially fluffy today.

“Hi,” says Steve, and smiles to make up for his deer-in-the-headlights stillness of before, and smiles to make Bucky smile, because he shouldn’t be frowning, no, not him. “Sorry. I was busy. Not that you’re interrupting—you aren’t, not at all—I just didn’t notice—or, well, I  _ noticed, _ I did, I noticed you, but I didn’t know how close you were…”

Steve hears himself prattle onward with swift-dawning horror, helpless to stop the stream of plaguing words falling from his lips. He has no idea what’s the matter with him. He never talks, everybody makes fun of him for how quiet he is, this is more than he’s spoken all  _ week  _ and now, now that it really matters, he’s making an enormous fool of himself and he  _ cannot stop speaking.  _

But Bucky: the furrow smooths away. He looks up at Steve, over the rise of all these books, clutching even more books to his own chest, and the furrow smooths away, and he laughs. Just a little. 

Not harsh. Not rude. A breath, really: Steve wants to hear it again. 

“Steve. Steve.  _ все нормально…”  _ He shakes his head a little when he realizes what language he’s slipped in, shoots a self-deprecating grin up at Steve that’s too fast for Steve to gather reassurance against, gives a liquid half-shrug that makes the thin gray scarf looped around his neck ripple. “It’s ok. I snuck up on you. Quiet feet.”

Steve moves out from behind the display, and Bucky moves to meet him. They stand on the hardwood floor, just air between them, between rows of books, beneath Sam’s watchful eye. 

“Like a dancer,” says Steve.

“Oh.” Bucky laughs again. A little louder this time. Again with the self-deprecation, and Steve wants say something kind and complimentary to him, he wants that very much, but he just doesn’t quite know how to voice all these words running through his head. “No. I’m far too clumsy for that.”

“I doubt it.” You’re beautiful, I think you’re beautiful, please can I hold your hand— 

“Steve,” calls Sam, and Steve loves Sam, Sam is Steve’s best friend, but right now, Steve wants to throw a book at Sam’s head. “Stop flirting and come here, the database fucked itself again.”

Bucky’s cheeks rapidly turn the color of a sunset. He makes a soft, embarrassed kitten sound and ducks his chin, backing away as he fumbles with the books in his arms. 

Steve glares at Sam with a passion when he stalks back over to the circulation desk. Sam blinks at him innocently, and somewhere in the stacks, Bucky sighs. 

  
  
  


It’s not that Bucky is shy. He isn’t. Quiet, maybe, at least until you get to know him; reserved and introverted, certainly. Hyper-conscious of the way living in Russia for the first twelve years of his life and not learning English until he was thirteen makes words hard sometimes, especially when he’s flustered, and makes all the edges of his sentences a little more tattered than the blunt accents around him, absolutely. 

He’s different. He knows this. He would be an idiot not to know this. He has known this for his whole life, and he’s had nearly twelve years to understand it, and to cope with it, and to get past the nagging ache of it; he has had nearly twelve years to relearn how to live. 

So he isn’t shy. But he isn’t easy and outgoing and confident, either. He knows his own… he knows himself. 

When he’s around Steve, all of that learned resolve and shucked-off shyness gets muddled up inside until he can barely remember the words of his first language, let alone his second. 

Steve is lovely. Peering around the edge of the history section—thick, dusty tomes peer with him, everyone interested in this heartstopping man—Bucky relearns this, relearns this for the millionth, trillionth time. Steve Rogers is  _ lovely.  _

Bucky feels young and different and scared. 

It isn’t Steve that makes Bucky feel this way. Bucky tucks a biography of Alexander Hamilton back up into its eye-level home on the pretence of doing something other than staring, and he contemplates. It isn’t Steve at all. Steve is, and always has been, and always will be, kind. Kind, and gentle, and yes, maybe, maybe a little shy. Steve has probably never judged another person in his life, unless it was for returning a book late, and even then it was probably with a devastatingly-admonishing smile, and an encouragement to try harder next time. Steve. Steve is  _ lovely.  _

Bucky has never met someone as lovely as him before. Bucky’s heart, which has been more or less well-behaved in his chest for twenty-four years, goes absolutely wild whenever he’s near Steve Rogers. 

It’s stupid, Bucky thinks, it’s probably horribly stupid to be in love with Steve. Already. At all. 

He just. 

He just. 

There’s no other name for it than that. There’s no other name for the thrum of Bucky’s blood through his veins, and the wild-dizzy-discombobulated-light-headedness, and the way he thinks he would be perfectly happy if only he could curl up against that strong chest for the rest of his life and never leave. And god, yes, he knows they barely know each other, he knows they’ve only spoken a handful of times, but— 

Stupid. 

Bucky goes over when he can’t think of another reasonable excuse to linger in this aisle and watch from afar any longer. Sam is conspicuously missing from the front desk, just as he has been every time Bucky has needed to check out for the past three weeks, and Bucky appreciates this. This means Steve: Steve, smiling his crinkle-eyed smile when Bucky draws near. Steve, taking Bucky’s books in his large, careful hands. 

“All set?” Steve asks him. A pretence. He’s coaxing Bucky’s small stack of choices over the counter towards himself already—romance novels today, because he’s in that mood—and smiling indulgently at the titles he sees there. Still, there’s a touch of real pleasure behind that indulgence. Maybe he’s read them before. Maybe he understands. 

Bucky pushes that thought away quickly.

“All set,” Bucky echoes. Today is a day that feels like there won’t be many words—at least no words he can say out loud. He thinks them inside. Instead. Thinks, I’m in love with you, how am I already in love with you? I want you to hold my hand _ .  _ Smiles, as best he can. 

Steve is wearing a cardigan, dark blue; one that takes the shade of his eyes and deepens it. The breadth of his bicep under navy wool does something to Bucky’s equilibrium, and he clutches at the counter, a little desperate, a little ashamed. 

Steve catches the movement. Of course he does. Concern floods those eyes like water into a reservoir, and one of his hands lifts like he’s going to touch, but stops himself just in time. “Bucky—are you ok?”

_ I’m swooning at you, _ Bucky thinks, half-hysterical. He doesn’t open his mouth. Can’t. 

“Buck…” Steve trails off—and  _ oh _ , a nickname, oh god—and Bucky watches as indecision clouds Steve’s forehead, as he quickly takes it in and pushes it aside. 

Steve covers one of Bucky’s hands with his own. 

Warm. Warm. Warm. 

Bucky shivers, and Steve— 

“Are you cold?” Steve asks him. The full force of his deep-ocean gaze is touching Bucky’s skin, is washing over Bucky like waves stroking a sandy shore, leaving him tremulous and—and oh, maybe he isn’t alright, not really, because he’s almost certain the dizziness rolling through him (pulse after pulse) isn’t from Steve. Not entirely from Steve, anyway.

There’s a rasp in Bucky’s lungs when he breathes in. Now that he’s stopped to think about it, now that he’s stopped to listen to his body instead of distracting himself by gazing at Steve Rogers from between hardback covers, he realizes that he… doesn’t feel good. Not really. Not at all. 

“A little,” says Bucky, honest in the wake of all that heavy-weight sincerity. He feels guilty for saying it. He remembers being  _ really _ cold—lonely nights on Russian streets, wind whistling through boarded-up windows as he and the rest of the parentless children sat knee-to-knee on trembling cots—and he knows that  _ this _ shouldn’t bother him. Not now, when he has a guaranteed home, and money for food, and an adopted family a few states away who adores him. 

Still. 

Steve is warm-hearted concern. Steve is kindness that makes Bucky ache inside. 

“Let me get you a blanket,” says Steve, already halfway out from behind the counter, pushing through the little swinging door that divides patrons from employees. His presence is big and warm and gentle, and Bucky wants to sink into him, close his eyes. “Let me… let me help.”

Bucky pulls back before Steve can get a guiding arm around his shoulders, and Steve falls away immediately, instantly receptive even to Bucky’s unvoiced  _ no.  _ God, he’s lovely. 

“Sorry,” says Steve. Hands at his sides. Distance between them. An apology rooted deep in his eyes, on his lips. He looks guilty, and Bucky hates that so much, but he doesn’t know how to… how to reassure… 

Bucky wants to drift into him: waves pulled inexorably by the tide of the moon. But Steve is lovely and kind and gentle and helpful, and Steve doesn’t see Bucky as anyone special, Steve would do this for any one of his patrons. Bucky can’t take advantage of that. 

“No, I…” Bucky looks at his own hands, gripping the edge of the desk. Knuckles white, fingertips squeezing hard so they don’t tremble. Oh, he hopes he isn’t getting sick; he  _ can’t  _ get sick. “I’ve just got to get home.”

“Right,” Steve says softly. He’s back on the other side of the counter, and he’s checking the books in one by one, slow, methodical movements that Bucky always gets mesmerized by if he watches for too long. Steve looks concerned and still guilty and something else—scared? But… why? “Ok. You be safe, Bucky.”

Bucky clutches his books to his chest like a shield, wishing he could soak up all the wisdom of those characters between yellowed pages and wear it like armor. Wishing he could say  _ please,  _ and could sit here on the desk and pull Steve’s head to his chest, and close his eyes, and breathe him in. 

“Goodbye,” says Bucky. A non-answer.  _ Words.  _ This is why he reads the stories in books and stars. 

It’s raining when he leaves. 

  
  
  


It’s raining when he gets out of class the next day, too. 

Big, fat drops, coming down fast and with a vengeance. He stands shivering in the doorway of his lecture hall, cursing his past self for not grabbing an umbrella when he left his apartment this morning, wishing he had just said  _ fuck it _ and stayed home, even though he can’t miss class, even though he had a project he had to turn in today… 

He woke up sick this morning. Sick, but not surprised. His head hurts like someone’s driving an anvil into his temple, and there’s a cough rattling around in his chest, and his whole body has been shaking lightly since he first opened his eyes onto this flat, sad, gray day. He’s fairly sure he has a fever, if the alternating flashes of hot and cold that pummel him are any indication, and the dizziness of yesterday hasn’t gone away—is in fact looping him around and around in head-pounding spirals, pulling the layers of the world apart in duplicate and turning every step into a guessing game: will his foot meet the earth, or will he go tumbling down… 

The stairs right now look like a mountain he must climb. The rain is icy cold. 

His apartment is all the way on the other side of town, a fifteen minute walk. He could make it, if he tried; he could make it, but… 

The library is just a block away. 

Bucky pulls the folds of his thin jacket down over his messenger bag, careful to keep the books inside sheltered from the downpour as best he can. It would be a tragedy if he ruined them just because he’s stupid and forgot his umbrella. 

He tucks his face down into his collar. Plunges into the rain. 

Outside, the air tastes like iron on his tongue, and the rain feels like frigid fingers curling over the nape of his neck: stark and unwelcome. Water stands on the streets in inches, rushing through the shallow dips on the side of the road and seeping into Bucky’s shoes. His socks are drenched already, and he hasn’t splashed any further than a few feet, and he hates wet socks, and he’s  _ cold.  _

There’s rain clinging to his lashes, a pattern of soft-round diamonds that tremble before they fall down into his eyes and over his cheeks like frigid tears; his curls stick to his forehead and temples, clinging and flat and stringy, and his head aches, and he nearly falls on his ass as he rounds the corner of the library—but then the door is just a few feet away, and he breathes out and out and out and grabs the handle— 

Steve. On the other side, trying to lock the door. Eyes big with shock. Hair the color of warm gold, pink lips and cheeks, a blue sweater on over a dark gray flannel, and he looks so unbearably fluffy and Bucky just  _ wants—  _

The door flies open and Bucky is frozen, immobile with the gallons of water weighing him down, petrified with all of this warmth that’s streaming out toward him. He wavers there on the threshold, arms wrapped tight around his own waist, hands clutching at the sodden fabric hanging like moss from his ribs: he blinks, and Steve slides in and out of focus, fast, flipping from one scene to the next. 

“Bucky,” Steve says, breathless, and he reaches, and Bucky falls. 

  
  


He’s freezing. 

Steve pulls him in. A hand Bucky’s shoulder, one on the ice-cold skin on the back of his neck—Bucky shudders at that, but burrows deeper into Steve’s shoulder, his own hands clinging to Steve’s waist—and kicks the library door shut with one foot, grateful for the fact that he’s already flipped the closed sign. 

“ _ Мне жаль,”  _ Bucky is saying, consonants and syllables whispered into Steve’s shoulder, words that Steve doesn’t understand, unsteady breath and pale, pale, pale skin. “ _ Мне жаль.” _

He’s so, so cold. Steve unloops his bag from over Bucky’s shoulder and drops it gently at their feet, and he curls his arms all the way around Bucky’s narrow form, trying to press as much of his own body heat into Bucky as he possibly can. Bucky makes a sound like comfort, and Steve presses his face into the top of Bucky’s head even though his curls are drenched, wanting to take care of him, terrified that he’ll do too much, incapable of letting go. 

“Hush, Buck,” Steve says softly, not thinking, murmuring on instinct. He strokes a hand over the bumpy, too-present ridge of Bucky’s spine, soaking in the rainwater standing on Bucky’s skin, absorbing the tremors that radiate from him like shock waves. “It’s ok kid, it’s ok, god, you’re so cold…”

“Sorry,” Bucky says, and Steve thinks that might be what he’s been saying over and over again, and holds him closer. “I shouldn’t be here—I mean… what I mean is that I should have gone home, I’m sorry for bothering you—”

“You aren’t bothering me,” Steve says quietly. Spreads a palm over the fragile convex of Bucky’s ribcage. Feels and listens to him breathe. “You’re just fine, I promise you are, you’re perfect.”

Bucky’s inhale stutters in his ribs, caught up behind bilingual murmurs and soft, tired sounds. “Steve,” he says. Tender and bruised.

“Come here, come with me,” says Steve. He slides his hand down thin, sodden arm bone and curls his fingers around twig-like wrist; he smiles at Bucky with all of the fondness he has, gazing down into sloe-eyed exhaustion, and hopes like hell that none of the misplaced love shines through. “We’re closed, nobody’s here but me, so we can use the reading room. Let’s get you warm and dry…” 

“Oh.” Bucky blinks at him—dark lashes clumped together with clinging rain, a distance to his focus, a fever-flush on his cheeks—and pulls his wrist out of Steve’s loose grip. Steve lets him go immediately, even though it’s the last thing he wants to do, even though Bucky looks like he’s going to topple over where he stands, and tries to shut down that flinch in his heart. “I’m sorry,” Bucky says again, small and forlorn, “I didn’t realize you were closed, I am, I’m an idiot, I’ll just go.”

Relief and sadness, warring within Steve; he lets relief win. 

“Hush,” Steve says again, as gently as he can, and winds his arm around Bucky’s waist. Bucky still looks sceptical and guilt-ridden and ill, but he drifts close to Steve anyway, like he couldn’t help it if he tried. “I told you, Buck, you’re just where you should be. If you… if you want to be here?”

He doesn’t mean for that last part to come out quite so tentatively, but when it does, he doesn’t regret it. Bucky should know that they are on very even ground, here. Bucky should feel safe. 

But, “ _ да.  _ Yes. I want to be,” Bucky says. And rests his head against Steve’s arm. 

Steve lets his eyes close for just a second, for less than that—just long enough to collect himself, to get used to that soft warm heat cuddled up to his side. And then he breathes. And then they go. 

He gets Bucky settled on the fluffy couch in the reading room—the one Bucky loves, the one he spends hours on sometimes, the one pulled up next to the crackling fire, nestled in an alcove of flickering orange heat. Bucky’s eyelids are heavy and lagging as he blinks at Steve, his pupils blown big; he clings to the collar of Steve’s shirt with surprising strength when Steve moves to grab the blanket, tugging him back in close. 

“Hey, now,” says Steve, smiling a little. He wraps Bucky’s hand up in both of his own, holding it to his chest for a moment, leaning over Bucky who is curled up small in the corner of the cushions. “Just a minute, sweetheart, I’ll be right back…” 

Steve keeps a spare set of clothes in the breakroom because, as Sam is fond of saying, he is nothing if not constantly anxious and overprepared. He grabs them now, touching folded fabric to gauge appropriate softness—Bucky likes soft things, Steve can tell by looking at him, his whole wardrobe is soft and hugs him gently—and nods, satisfied, when he sees that it’s a fleece thermal and sweatpants. 

Bucky’s arms are wound around his legs when Steve comes back, his hands clasped before his shins, his head tipped forward so that his face is hidden behind his knees. He lifts his face to Steve like a flower toward the sun, meeting his eyes, smiling with liquid-sweetness as Steve draws near; he is tired and sick and wet, and still he’s beautiful. 

“Alright,” Steve says, reaching him. He touches, because he can’t help it: a palm fitted over the soft curve of Bucky’s cheek, fingertips brushing downy and quick-drying curls, a thumb sweeping over the purple-gray pool beneath his left eye. Bucky leans into it, seeking the warmth of skin-on-skin, eyes fluttering closed. “I brought you something nice and dry and warm to change into. I’ll go make you some hot chocolate while you change, ok?”

Bucky is smiling at him, a little absently, like he doesn’t quite realize he’s doing it. “You don’t have to,” he says quietly. “Make me hot chocolate, I mean. I mean. I don’t know what I mean.”

Steve skirts the edge of Bucky’s mouth with the edge of his hand. He thinks he’s smiling, too. “I’ll be right back.”

  
  
  


Bucky is warm, and and dry, and safe. 

Three things: three things he values very much. Three things that he hasn’t always had. 

He opens his eyes slowly, lashes peeling away from lashes like pushing through heavy forest branches. He feels fuzzy and unfocused, but in a good way: in a way that speaks of rest rather than illness, that speaks of sleep rather than the drag of exhaustion. His hair is dry; he can tell because it hangs down over his forehead and brushes a little bit into his eyes, as fluffy as cotton blooms. He’s curled on his side on his favorite couch, and the blanket over him is heavy and comforting. 

Steve is sitting on the floor right at Bucky’s eye level, head tipped down, reading a book that’s spread open on his lap. 

Bucky just watches him for a minute. This is a windowless room they’re in, and the only light comes from the tall, slender-stalked lamp in the corner, the leaping fire in the grate. Steve’s hair glows golden on the ends. He’s smiling gently at something on the page. There’s a cup of cocoa sitting on the floor next to his thigh. 

Bucky’s heart sways widely, like a bauble on a string. 

“ _ Возлюбленная,”  _ Bucky says. Quiet. “Steve.”

He looks up, and that smile breaks into something a little bigger—something that’s stretched wider than anything gentle, quiet Steve Rogers has ever given Bucky Barnes before. The firelight dances in his pupils. 

“Hey,” he says, setting his book aside carefully, rising to a kneel and leaning down over Bucky in an unconsciously protective way that makes Bucky’s chest hurt, tender-tight. He touches Bucky’s shoulder with the fingertips of his right hand: soft, a stroke so light Bucky barely feels it through the layers of blanket and the bunched up sleeves of his borrowed shirt. “You fell asleep.”

“Sorry,” Bucky says. He should probably sit up, probably move; he isn’t going to. There’s a dreamlike comfort to all of this, a poignant, heart-panging deliciousness that he isn’t going to let go of until Steve tells him to. He hopes it takes a while. “I was tired…”

“Yeah,” Steve says, laughing on a breath. Bucky tilts a little into his touch, seeking contact, and Steve obliges him. The curve of his hand over Bucky’s shoulder is… thrilling. “Still are, aren’t you? It’s just, you look sleepy.”

_ Kiss me, _ Bucky thinks, and has to keep his mouth shut tight in case he says it aloud. 

“...Bucky?” Steve asks, hovering on the edge of concerned—not there yet, but close, like he could tip over into it if Bucky needed him to. His fingers are warm and dry on the angle of Bucky’s jaw as he tilts Bucky’s head up a little, up until he can press the back of his wrist against Bucky’s forehead. “I don’t think you have a fever, but…” 

“No fever,” Bucky says. Steve is still touching him, even though he doesn’t have a viable excuse any longer, and it is that fact that makes Bucky smile. “Though I’m… sick, I believe. A bit.”

Steve smiles at him: the crinkle of his eyes, the soft curve of his mouth beneath an amber-blond beard. “A bit. You don’t look good,” Steve says, and there’s a beat, and then those still-water eyes go wide as he begins to furiously backtrack. “I mean—shit, fuck, I mean you don’t look like you  _ feel good,  _ you always  _ look _ good—not that I look at you all the time—although I do, a bit, but, um—shit. Ignore me. Please.”

Bucky gazes up at him, speechless, although not for the reasons Steve obviously thinks. Steve… looks at him? Enough that he knows how to tell when Bucky feels bad? Enough, maybe, and—maybe he likes what he sees? 

“No,” Bucky says, wide and slow like he’s walking through a dream, his hand set upon Steve’s, fingers weaving through fingers, a touch that turns into a grasp. “I don’t think I will. Ignore you, that is. That is, I don’t think I want to.”

Steve looks down at him. At the place where their hands touch. Back into Bucky’s eyes. 

“I look at you too, Steve,” Bucky says. There’s an impossible bravery springing to life inside of him, and he leans against that, he lets that carry his words out on a sigh. “More than you know. And I want...”

“What,” asks Steve very softly, and his voice shakes in the middle, even though his hands are still steady and caring and strong, “do you want, Buck?”

There is a moment: a heart-fluttering-in-throat moment, a suspended-over-crystal-waters moment—

Steve, touching him. Warm and soft. Gentle. So gentle. 

Firelight dances over all their worn-soft edges. 

“You,” Bucky breathes. 

“Bucky,” says Steve, voice spilling sunshine and cinnamon in the spaces between them, and then he frames Bucky’s cheeks with his broad palms, and then he drifts down close, and then he kisses him. 

It’s a sigh, or a whisper: lips brushing so lightly that every fiber of Bucky longs to surge upward and chase him, so lightly that he thinks he might cry at the sheer tender care behind the movement. His eyes are closed, and he slides his hands up Steve’s ribs and to his big shoulders as Steve pulls back a very little bit, just far enough that their breaths mingle in that little bit of open air that exists between their lips. 

“Steve,” Bucky murmurs—he sounds ruined just from that, just from that infinitesimal, heart-stopping touch—and their lips brush with the movement, and Bucky shivers all over, from his head to his toes. “ _ Steve _ . God.  _ пожалуйста.  _ Please.”

“What do you need, sweetheart?” Steve asks him, ever gentle, ever concerned, the pet name falling from his lips easily, like it’s meant to be there. And Bucky thinks maybe he said it before, maybe, earlier this evening when Bucky was so tired he couldn’t think… and Bucky is glowing inside, bright and steady, all-consuming,  _ wonderful.  _ “Are you cold? You need another blanket?”

“No,” says Bucky, reaching for him, meeting warm flesh and soft fabric and, oh, god,  _ Steve.  _ Cerulean eyes and a smile made to live in. “No,  _ Солнышко.  _ Sunshine.” He smiles, gives his chin an imperious tilt, drags his fingertips through the thick softness of Steve’s beard. “Just you. Kiss me more.”

“Bossy, aren’t you?” Steve murmurs, but he’s smiling too, big and wide and glorious, and he does. 

Bucky loses a few moments, lost in the delicious golden swirl of warmth that curls like a friendly cat in his belly as Steve pulls one knee up onto the edge of the couch and bends down over Bucky and kisses him, kisses him, kisses him. He floats: anchored by the touchstone of Steve’s hands and lips and solid, grounding weight on top of him, and he lets himself be pressed down into the eager embrace of fluffy cushions, and tugs Steve with him. 

  
  
  


“Keep those,” Steve says, and runs a hand along the fleece-hugged length of Bucky’s arm. Because he wants to. Because he can. “There’s no sense in you putting your wet things on again when we’ve finally got you warm and dry.”

Bucky, sitting up now, swamped to the chest in blankets, still absently clutching Steve like he barely realizes he’s doing it, looking up and leaning in, and blue topaz eyes and his lips a little swollen and red—Bucky smiles at Steve from beneath his lashes. Plys the edge of Steve’s sleeve with nimble, beseeching fingers. “I would be warmer if you came back over here,” he says, even though their knees are touching and Steve is closer to him now than he would have dared to dream about a day ago. 

Steve can’t say no to that face. It’s a problem, of course, but one that Steve is absolutely thrilled to be having: he will give Bucky anything he wants. 

“Buck,” Steve says, low, and kisses the soft curve of his still-pale cheek, right at the edge of that tender mouth. “You’re sick. I gotta get you home.”

Bucky follows Steve when he draws away, leaning in closer and closer until he topples in to Steve’s side. Playful kitten-clumsiness, and wide, imploring eyes. “Don’t wanna go home,” Bucky mutters, and the noise he makes when Steve wraps an arm around his narrow shoulders and draws him in is as close to a pur as anything. 

“If you go home and eat dinner and sleep,” Steve says, using his best reasoning voice, even though he doesn’t want Bucky to leave either—god, he just wants him to stay right here, safe and warm and small, protected up against Steve’s chest where he belongs—even though he wants nothing more than to give in, “and take your time waking up, and eat breakfast in the morning… if you do all that, then you can come back to me tomorrow. How’s that sound, sweetheart?”

“Now who’s bossy,” says Bucky. But he’s smiling again; he’s smiling, and he’s gone absolutely pliant against Steve’s chest, just a bundle of flushed contentedness for Steve to take care of. And then: “You could. Um. Steve. You could come home with me, and… make sure?”

It’s the question on the end of the sentence that makes Steve melt. The hesitation in that voice that makes Steve think that Bucky has been told no before, and often, and that’s such an absurd thought, such a sad one, that for a moment if feels like the rush of love swelling up in Steve’s throat is either going to suffocate him, or burst out into the air. 

He takes a moment. Shoves it back. 

“Buck…” Steve starts slowly, making sure to keep touching him, so he knows it isn’t another of those outright nos. “You’re sick.”

“Not to—I know I am, Steve, I just—just to do exactly what you said, is what I meant, but of course I understand if it’s too much, or too fast, or too… or something you don’t want—”

Steve can’t say no. He just can’t. 

“Ok,” he says instead, smoothing back a few eiderdown curls. “Alright, of course it’s not too much Bucky, of course I want to. I gotta go home and take care of my dog tonight though, so do you… would you mind coming home with me? Would that be ok?”

Bucky is beaming. It’s almost too much for Steve’s heart to handle. “ _ Dog, _ ” says Bucky in delight. 

“Right,” says Steve, laughing a little, and guides Bucky in close with a hand cupped over the nape of his neck, and presses his lips to Bucky’s temple, and thinks, I love you, I love you, I love you. “Ok.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Twitter, so if you wanna hear me scream about writing, you can clink this [handy dandy linky boi](https://twitter.com/unicornpoe)


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